Chapter II: The Coinage of Tamil States

The Tamil states of the far south first became wealthy owing to their foreign sea-borne trade. Tradition has defined with some exactness the territories held by the three principal races in ancient times; the Pāṇḍyas inhabited the modern Madura and Tinnevelly districts, the Choḷas the Coromandel Coast (Choḷamandalam), and the Chera or Keraḷa country comprised the district of Malabar together with the states of Cochin and Travancore. Although their frontiers varied considerably at different periods, this distribution is sufficiently accurate for a study of their coin types.

Nevertheless history affords but few glimpses in early times of these peoples: the Pallavas, as is evident from inscriptions, a native pastoral tribe akin to the Kurumbas, were the first dominant power in the extreme south. At first Buddhists, but later converted to Brahmanical Hinduism, during the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries they extended their territories from their capital, Kāñchī, the modern Conjeeveram, until these included even Ceylon; but they suffered considerably from wars with the Chālukyas, and were overwhelmed in the ninth century by the Choḷas and Pāṇḍyas. It was under the patronage of the Pallavas that South Indian architecture and sculpture began in the sixth century. The earlier Pallava coins, a legacy from the Andhras, are indistinguishable from those of the Kurumbas; later pagodas and fanams bear the Pallava emblem, the maned lion, either on obverse or reverse (Pl. VII, 8),[40] but the legends remain undeciphered.

[40] This attribution is somewhat doubtful.

The Pāṇḍyas had a chequered career: at first independent, then subject to the Pallavas, they emerge in the ninth century to fall once more during the eleventh and twelfth centuries under the domination of the Choḷas. In the thirteenth century they were the leading Tamil state, but gradually sank into local chieftains. The earliest Pāṇḍya coins retain the ancient square form, but are die-struck, with an elephant on the obverse and a blank reverse; later coins have a peculiar angular device on the reverse; others of a still later period display a diversity of emblems, such as wheels, scrolls and crosses. The Pāṇḍya coins, assigned to a period from the seventh to the tenth century, are gold and copper, and all bear the fish emblem adopted by the later chiefs (Pl. VII, 3): the innovation is supposed to mark a change in religion from Buddhism to Brahmanism. The fish appears sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, and sometimes, especially on the later copper coins, in conjunction with other symbols, particularly the Choḷa standing figure and the Chālukyan boar. The inscriptions on these, such as _Soṇāḍu koṇḍāṇ_, “He who conquered the Choḷa country,” and _Ellān-talaiy-āṇāṇ_, “He who is chief of the world,” are in Tamil, but the intermingling of the symbols, evident marks of conquest, makes any certain attribution difficult.

Madura, the later capital of the Pāṇḍyas, was captured by ’Alāu-d-dīn in 1311, and an independent Muhammadan dynasty ruled there from 1334 to 1377, after which it was added to the Vijayanagar kingdom.

The Choḷas were supreme in Southern India from the accession of Rājarāja the Great in 985 down to 1035, during which period they extended their conquests to the Deccan and subdued Ceylon. After some years of eclipse they rose again under Rājendra Kulottuṅga I (acc. 1074), who was related to the Eastern Chālukyas of Veṅgī. The Choḷa power declined in the thirteenth century. The earlier coins of the dynasty, before 985, are gold and silver pieces, portraying a tiger seated under a canopy along with the Pāṇḍya fish (Pl. VII, 6); the names inscribed on them have not been satisfactorily explained. The later class of Choḷa coins, all copper, have a standing figure on the obverse and a seated figure on the reverse, with the name _Rāja Rāja_ in Nāgarī. This type spread with the Choḷa power, and was slavishly copied by the kings of Ceylon (1153-1296; cf. Pl. VII, 7), and its influence is also noticeable on the earlier issues of the Nāyaka princes of Madura and Tinnevelly.

Only one coin has been attributed to a Chera dynasty. A silver piece in the British Museum, with Nāgarī legends on both sides (Pl. VII, 9), belongs to the Keraḷa country, the extreme southern portion of the western coast, and has been assigned to the eleventh or twelfth century.